Jennie E. Annis was born on January 1, 1841, in Manchester, Connecticut, to Charles D. Annis and Adotia R. Bidwell. Her father was a machinist who owned $6,000 of real estate and $2,000 of personal property in 1860. Jennie grew up and attended school in Manchester. She married William Lyon Norton on April 12, 1866, and they had at least two children: William, born around 1866; and Sumner, born around 1876. They moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, in the late 1860s, and her husband worked as a machinist and tool maker there. By 1870, they owned $1,500 of real estate and $300 of personal property. Jennie died in Connecticut on February 22, 1885.